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Matrox Releases XFree86 4.0.1 Driver
As the title says - Matrox has released a beta driver for their G200/G400/G450 which includes support for DualHead and QuadHead (up to 4 monitors), Flat Panel and TV out. This driver is a beta. You can get it here and I mirrored it here. You'll need XFree 4.0.1 in order to use this driver. Please follow the readme file carefully! (the readme file from Matrox's FTP needs to be converted dos2unix). Note: you cannot use the 3D hardware acceleration on the 2nd monitor (yet).Matrox & Precision insight - Keep up the good work!
...is that the new driver model for XFree86 v4 is something that works. Hardware manufacturers can now ship one driver, and not worry about which distributions to target (or even Linux vs. BSD issues, because they all use the same driver model). See that? When third parties have a single target, they ship stuff. When faced with fragmentation, they only sometimes ship stuff, and when they do, it's usually only for the most popular marget segment (cf. all the third party software advertised as "For Red Hat Linux"). Way to go, XFree (and Precision Insight, which contributed the module loader).
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Hopefully they will allow their source to be publicly modified, as video drivers can make or break a graphics card.
One of the major problems with OS/2 was the video drivers. With good drivers it was rock-solid, but with the matrox drivers I had to use it crashed regularly - I eventually found this was the driver and not OS/2. But because Matrox regarded OS/2 as unimportant they never updated them - this was the main reason I abandoned it. If a Windows user tries Linux and discovers it crashes all the time because of an old driver - they're unlikely to come back.
If Matrox want the unix world to use their cards they'll have to release the sources.
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Ignore reality - there's nothing you can do about it.
Because Nvidia is much worse about binary drivers. ATI could be another alternative depending on what your are looking for. Matrox has given back to Linux and they are working on doing more but it would really suck if they did something stupid like releasing things they license from other people. Let them work out the legal details so they can do it right. I'd hate to see any company get shutdown because of legal problems just so you can have source. Ok, I might cry less if I didn't see another Trident or Savage chipset but I still would some. Just be patient with these companies. It takes a lot of work to turn one of these big ships and I believe that Matrox is coming on around. Hopefully Nvidia is making the swing too but it will take time to work out the legal issues. Have faith.
Please look at the CVS tree of the DRI project, Matrox had worked together with Precision Insight to develop this drivers and the source is there. This particular release seems to be mising one bit (the HAL), but it looks like that will be released, too. Look at the DRI mailing list archives if you want more info about the current status of the DRI.